Core only wizard options

[Stygofthedump]

I read a lot about conjugation being better at blasting due to orb of x spells, but how does evocation do in core only? Would one still drop it? I quite like deviner drop enchantment. What's the consensus for lv 10 core only?

[JusticeZero]

It's still pretty lame. Wizards have a lot of freaking broken buffs, debuffs, and controls in Core, and even though Conjuration loses a lot of direct damage, the Evocation direct damage is still usually less impressive than most anything else you might do. The last time I had a wizard who got much use out of Evocation spells was because the GM kept throwing smallish rooms full of tightly packed low powered minions at us, and there are lots of ways to deal with those situations in other schools too.

[eggynack]

Yeah, evocation does top the proverbial charts in blasting again, when in core, and most of the best evocations are in core (though that's true of most schools of magic, cause core be crazy), but the school is still hanging out in the bottom three, above enchantment, and either above or below necromancy, depending on preference. You're just not getting the same level of unique effects out of evocation that you are out of the other five schools.

Conjuration and transmutation are obviously packing a ridiculous amount of stuff, so you can't ban them, divination is unbannable, and beyond that, it offers knowledge, the most important thing to a wizard, abjuration has dispel magic, along with a few other highly valuable things, and illusion has a bunch of stuff, ranging from silent image to invisibility to mirror image, along with shadow evocation, which covers some of the ground lost by banning that school. Evocation just can't compete with that.

[Eldariel]

Enchantment is usually my first go-to to drop in Core just so I can get Contingency on time and play around with the Force Walls. A bit later Greater Shadow Evocation does a reasonable job of replicating them but for now Evocation is not bad. Still, for offense, Evocation is only really relevant if you need to kill hordes of mooks in few seconds. For that, Widened Fireball is not bad though Stinking Cloud or such is likely still more efficient. For one-target offense, Necromancy offers a mostly superior tool in Enervation. It does fail against negative energy immunity tho (but again, energy immunities and resistances are just as common so that's not really much in the advantage of Evocation).

Basically, Core or non-Core, unless you optimize for it heavily (something you can't do in Core short of Red Wizard of Thay), you won't want to use direct damage spells vs. threatening enemies. You'd rather try and take them out of the fight. For that, Conjuration and Transmutation offer the best tools with Illusion, Necromancy, Abjuration, Evocation and Enchantment all pitching in a bit. Conjuration does offer calling spells and summons which can provide you with beef and direct damage if that's what you want and you end up without allies, and Transmutation can at least turn yourself into an angel or something for when fighting calls for it. Tho Shapechange is still 7 levels away, you have a reasonable setup. You also have Disintegrates and Baleful Polymorphs and such for dealing with individual enemies if you want to just blow stuff up.